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I THE 

College Man 



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An Address before the Convention oi the I 

National Alumni Association of Princeton 
University held in St. Louis 
February 12, 1921 

By 

I. H. LIONBERGER J 

I 



Putliskc J ty 

The American CreditJndemnityCo. 

St. Louis, Mo, 

1921 

Copies to be had of the Company on Application 



I 

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THE j 

College Man i 



I 

An Address before the Convention of the i 

National Alumni Association of Princeton | 

University held in St. Louis I 

February 12, 1921 | 

^9 f^ By j 

I/H.' LIONBERGER j 

i 

I 

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I 

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PuDiisned by | 

The American Credit -Indemnity Co. j 

St. Louis, Mo. i 

1921 I 

Copies to he had of the Company on Application 



I 



GFFT 

WRS. WOOD ROW WfLSOM 

NOV. 25, 1939 



^^ 






THE COLLEGE MAN 

This Convention is important. The first of its 
kind, it may mean something or nothing. The 
general objects which have inspired it are obvious. 
We wished mutual understanding and mutual 
liking but, subconsciously, I think we meant more. 

Perhaps you will expect me to discuss the whole 
state of Princeton's great university, to enumerate 
its achievem.ents, applaud its great men and reveal 
to you its aspirations; but, lacking eloquence, I 
will not attempt so lofty a flight. Permit me to 
perform a more himible service. Every one of us 
at graduation had to confront problems which 
were at once vexing and perplexing. What had 
we derived from college, what should we have got 
from it, whose fault was it that we were so little 
regarded, why was it so hard to get on, what was 
the value of the instruction we had received, was 
it our fault or the fault of the college that we 
seemed so worthless to the community and our- 
selves? 

These are important questions, fit I think for 
the consideration of this Ecumenical Council of 
graduates. If our instruction was faulty, we 
should understand where and why it failed, and 
perhaps suggest a remedy. If ourselves and not 
the college were to blame, we might advise others 
of the blunders we committed. 

[3] 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

Let US try at the outset to understand what a 
university is and what it can and cannot do. It 
is composed of teachers and scholars, both of whom 
are human beings and therefore imperfect. 

Not every man Imows how to teach. The 
teacher is bom, not made. One may be diligent, 
learned, thoughtful, thorough, yet if he lack elo- 
quence he cannot teach; to know is not necessarily 
to be able to tell. However careful, however 
liberal a college may be, it cannot always find good 
teachers, and I am inclined to think that its sys- 
tem does not allow enough play to the law of 
natural selection. We choose, and choosing blim- 
der, for we select the best scholar we can find, 
forgetting that the faculty to pass a brilliant ex- 
amination by giving the right answers does not 
necessarily involve either great intellectual power 
or the capacity to arouse enthusiasm. Moreover, 
the work we assign and the life we offer to instruct- 
ors are not calculated to bring out what is best in 
them. To set lessons, to ask questions, mark 
answers and grade pupils is a killing trade, de- 
structive of that vivacity which should character- 
ize teaching. The relationship between instructor 
and inferior is of itself demoralizing, for a superi- 
ority which is constantly asserted tends to self- 
sufficiency and stays progress. The college pro- 

[4] 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

fessor is apt to be a specialist, and confinement to 
one department of knowledge tends always to a 
narrow thoroughness which results in lean little- 
ness. I do not mean that there are no teachers 
who are broad men, but I do mean that few have 
either the faculty or the opportunity to become 
what their high calling requires. 

On the other hand, we have the average school- 
boy, who has somehow got it into his head that 
learning can be poured into him as we pour milk 
into a pitcher; who expects to be educated and not 
to educate himself; who inclines to repetition 
rather than understanding and is content if by 
giving the expected answers he can pass his exami- 
nations; who can repeat the rule governing the 
ablative absolute, but will not take the trouble 
to inquire the meaning either of ablative or abso- 
lute; who is in fact a manufactured product of a 
very bad method of instruction called cramming. 
Such a boy, so taught and so inclined, usually the 
offspring of the prosperous class, undisciplined by 
hardship of any sort, never having had to think 
seriously, comes to college expecting not an educa- 
tion, to be laboriously acquired, but enjoyment; 
and of such the student body of every university 
is composed. It is hard to make scholars of this 
misinformed, affluent, superior and rather conde- 
scending product of the average school. 

[5] 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

Of these two, the average teacher and the aver- 
age boy, the university must be composed. Equip- 
ped as it is and must be, what can the college 
accomplish for those who resort to it? We cannot 
hope to fashion them into philosophers and states- 
men, nor even into financiers or captains of indus- 
try. No factory can produce such goods. We 
must be content with a more humble and more 
achievable task, and I think the university wise 
which promises nothing more to its students than 
opportunity to acquire that sort of culture which 
will enable them to be what we call in a vague 
way open-minded, apprehensive, tolerant, clear- 
seeing, honorable, interesting men of the world. 

If we consent to sink lower and try to turn 
boys into mere architects, builders, traders, manu- 
facturers, brokers and bankers, we cannot hope to 
compete with the studio and workshop; if we try 
to rise higher and achieve the lofty aspirations 
of a Plato or a Milton, adopting their aurea dicta 
in lieu of a more modest curriculum, we shall be 
apt to burn our wings in a foolish flight toward 
the unattainable. 

Choo^ng the middle way, what can college do 
for its young men with the vast foundations bene- 
factors have established for their instruction? I 
think we can do a great deal, and I base my con- 

£6] 



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THE COLLEGE MAN 

viction upon the steadfast fact that we have done 
a great deal. The college man is not like other 
men. Somehow he has been fashioned into some- 
thing slightly perhaps, but obviously superior; 
not by learning, for he carries no such burden, but 
by influences which tend to the production of a 
distinct type, marked and set apart from his fel- 
lows. He is a distinct type; his point of view is 
not that of the self-made man, it is not that of the 
craftsman, artist or philosopher. He is a simple, 
intelligible, fairly well informed, polite, unashamed 
man of good sense and breeding whom we call a 
gentleman. He does not know so much as to 
offend, nor so little as to distress us. We trust him 
and like to associate with him. He can under- 
stand us and we him. If he is not wise, he is 
usually modest, for he is intelligent enough to 
know that he may also be ignorant. If he is not 
very industrious, he is never quite worthless. He 
values happiness more than wealth. He has a 
clean body and a clean mind, and I do not think 
he lacks the virtues which most become a man. 
The "fianneled fools" of Oxford and Cambridge 
were not less manly than the disciplined hordes of 
their adversaries, and when the call for volunteers 
came from President Wilson every college in the 
land was deserted. 

[7] 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

Granting that a university can find neither 
teachers nor students ideal in character and 
faculty, nevertheless it has somehow accomplished 
much good; and I, who have been out of college 
many years and had opportunity to observe and 
consider, frankly declare that I have little fault to 
find with Princeton. Its tradition is sound, its 
instruction useful. To insist that it is imperfect 
is perhaps to emphasize infirmities which inhere in 
every human institution. 

Yet there is room for kindly criticism. After 
graduation it was my good fortune to be the 
companion of superiors, and they taught me many 
things— roughly perhaps, but thoroughly; and I 
know that in my own case college did not turn 
out anything like an educated man. Its instruc- 
tion was not calculated to produce such a result. 
I was taught to rely more on faith than reason, 
and to say what men should think rather than 
why they should think it; and having been filled 
with comfortable and useful prejudices, found no 
way to improve them. Superiority did not at 
once influence me, for knowing a little of every 
subject I was rather content to listen than com- 
prehend another's point of view. I lacked that 
conviction of sin which is the beginning of re- 
demption. What I thought I knew repelled that 

[8] 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

of which I was ignorant. I had been taught in 
college what to admire, and it never occurred to 
me that I had to understand Shakespeare or Milton 
or Bacon in order that the greatness of these men 
might become evident to me. Nothing that was 
old was quite understood, for I did not ponder 
upon it. Not in truth but in the opinions of others 
I found all that I sought in truth. There was no 
department in the university which taught me 
how to defend myself against imposture, quackery, 
plausibility or fanaticism. None told me either 
the meaning of words or how to repel their tyranny. 
I had no opportunity to ask questions. My 
teachers, having adopted the maxim of the preach- 
ers that as the twig is bent the tree will incline, 
sedulously inculcated doctrines and convictions 
which they deemed wholesome, and I was unable 
to resist them however incredible they might have 
been. What I had been taught I stuck to, and it 
stuck to me. Ihad become in fact as docile as a 
certain creature much talked of by children — 

Everywhere that Mary went 
The lamb was sure to go — 

If I may dare to assume that others were fash- 
ioned like myself, I may say that new things seemed 
to us more true than old, because we had not been 
taught what to think with respect to them. Gener- 

19] 



THE CX)LLEGE MAN 

ous in character, modest perhaps, we inclined to 
embrace every specious suggestion of sentimen- 
tality, and a new name was more influential than 
an old principle. We followed blindly the uplifter 
and the reformer, because we did not know how 
to resist their plausibilities. We liked the "chatter 
of irresponsible frivolity" and were carried away 
by an idea because we could not understand that 
it was apt to be no more than a foolish craving for 
a change in circumstances. 

The baccalaureate sermons were influential with 
us. I have heard many and none which did not tell 
the graduates that they had been equipped to 
make the world a better place to live in. Every 
one of them enjoined the duty to influence, to 
improve, to raise others to our own level; and not 
one of them explained precisely what it m.eant us 
to be or to do. Mr. Wilson, for example, claimed 
for us the spiritual leadership of the world, but he 
did not tell us on what ground he based his claim, 
nor to what goal we should lead the world. Peace, 
the right of self-determination, righteousness, are 
words, high-sounding perhaps but still mere words, 
for there is a peace which is dishonorable, and 
righteousness may be what I think and not what 
another conceives it to be, and not what is in fact 
righteous. Such vague notions, eloquently ex- 

[10] 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

pressed, captured our fancies and filled us with a 
comfortable self-complacency, for they required 
no thinking and gave a certain emotion which 
seemed not altogether ungenerous. 

So instructed and so inclined, we entered upon 
a puzzling, complicated, unintelligible world teem- 
ing with strange problems which did not seem 
quite like those we had been prepared for. Some- 
how, our knowledge had not been suited to the 
exigencies of actual life. Let me illustrate what 
I mean. 

The recent war shattered the conventions by 
which we lived. Every tradition was disregarded, 
every institution was challenged. We conscripted 
our sons and sent them to fight an alien's battle, 
dedicating them to sacrifice on strange altars; we 
appropriated private property scornfully, as if the 
owner were a thief; we forbade men to use wine 
even to strengthen the bonds of amity or celebrate 
a marriage; we emancipated women to sordid uses 
and thrust them into offices and duties which 
cannot but impair the peace and serenity of the 
home. We convinced the laborer that the commu- 
nity owed him a living, and even tried by law to 
compel employers to pay $2 for work worth $1. 
We told the farmers that they had a right to exact 
more for wheat than it was worth in the market, 

111] 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

and we said to the borrowers you may borrow 
more than the banks have to lend, and to the 
banks you may lend more than your resources 
justify. Scorning the work of patient time, , we 
tore asunder the laborious fabric of centuries of 
progress and shattered old nations in order to set 
up mushroom states which had never known the 
problems of liberty. A new creed was substituted 
for the old: riches without work, liberty without 
character, the franchise without responsibility, 
happiness without goodness, the right to live at 
another's cost. Dissatisfied with the old laws 
interpreted by the courts and therefor intelligible, 
we made new ones — rashly, inconsiderately, im- 
patiently. We created an amazing number of new 
ofifices, and eagerly rushed to strange, untried and 
silly expedients to raise money. We taxed prop- 
erty, services and the income from property. We 
searched, seized and deported without a hearing, 
and gave to the executive authorities an unfettered 
power such as no tyrant had ever enjoyed; heed- 
lessly disregarding the limitations of fundamental 
law and time-honored principles as though they 
were obsolete barriers to progress. Having in- 
vented many new words and perverted to strange 
uses old ones, we called this man * 'profiteer" and 
that one ''bolshevist" and used him accordingly. 
Fascinated by the word ''propaganda", we filled 

[12] 



I 
THE COLLEGE MAN 

the newspapers of the land with the partisan 
reports of paid officials. We complained of the 
high cost of living and encouraged the "stabiliza- 
tion of prices". Having invented a reserve sys- 
tem, we approved the issue of fiat money and made 
finance corporations and manufactured credit. 
Under the guise of government ownership, we 
crippled the railroads and impaired their service. 
We pretended that conscripted soldiers were all 
heroes. Having fought for the freedom of the 
seas and the removal of economic barriers, we set 
up a multitude of little states to vex each other 
by customs laws and acknowledged the right of 
England to prevent access to its enemies even by 
seizures in mid-ocean. 

None of these agitating innovations were quite 
understood by us: we lacked the faculty to judge 
of them. Roused by sensational newspapers, de- 
nied the opportunity to hear the other side, we 
were swept along the current of what we deemed 
public opinion to all sorts of strange extravagances, 
and mightily rejoiced in our patriotic emotions. 
The university mighit have made us less credulous. 
Never before was there a more urgent demand for 
that "complete and generous education which fits 
a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnani- 
mously all the offices, both public and private, of 

113] 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

peace and of war." What is a university but a 
great treasury of experience? It teaches the past 
and pretends to interpret that past, but it does 
not do so. It has made us familiar with dates 
and names, but it has not explained to us the 
meaning of history, literature, politics or science. 
It did not give us that knowledge which might have 
enabled us to realize that there is nothing new 
under the sun, that the problems of today ex- 
pressed in A B and C, are but the problems of yester- 
day which were expressed inXYand Z;that from the 
beginning what is good and bad, what is expedient 
and inexpedient, what is just and imjust, what is 
new and old, have been in incessant conflict and 
that over and over again the same expedients have 
been tried with the same results. 

College might have taught us that mere laws 
have never secured good government, and that a 
sumptuary law which denies temptation to weak- 
ness cannot result in anything but a cloistered 
and fugitive virtue unsuitable to the manly charac- 
ter. It might have told us that since the begin- 
ning none has been able to eat bread save in the 
sweat of his face; it might have pointed out the 
innumerable instances in which price regulation 
has resulted in the very evils against which it was 
directed; it might have told us the meaning of 

1141 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

"not worth a continental" and all the miseries 
which resulted from the use by our ancestors of 
paper money, and warned us against inflation and 
artificial credits and finance corporations; it might 
have taught us that inflation always increases the 
cost of war, and that exports are profitable only 
when they result in the exchange of goods for 
goods. It might have taught us the value of free 
speech and the dangers involved in midnight 
searches and seizures; the economic value of capital 
and the perils involved in excessive waste and 
taxation; that the sanctity of treaties has never 
depended upon the engagement of words; that 
since the days of Solon no league has ever curbed 
the rapacity of the strong; that our own solemn 
league of confederated colonies, composed of people 
of the same blood engaged in a common struggle 
for emancipation from a common tyranny, failed 
in every crisis of that struggle; and that Napoleon 
tried to set up a barrier against his enemies by the 
creation of the Rhine Federation, which afforded a 
basis for the German Empire. It might have 
presented to us that amazing series of sins and 
punishments, blunders and afflictions, aims and 
disappointments which constitute the history of 
the world; but it did not. 

If you insist that it did and that all the facts 
and events I have mentioned were familiar to you, 

[15] 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

then I say so much the worse for the college instruc- 
tion. To tell a boy a fact and not explain its 
significance, to declare a principle and not make 
it evident that under like circumstances it may 
always be relied on, is to give stones instead of 
bread. For instance, if I say paper money is not 
money and do not explain its promissory character, 
I confuse the student for he can buy with it and 
will not believe me. Not one college man in a 
thousand understands why inflation must result in 
affliction soon or late. A college professor is today 
teaching students how to stabilize prices by vary- 
ing the quantity of gold in a dollar, and few per- 
sons perceive that you cannot make scarce goods 
cheap nor abundant goods dear by any such silly 
expedient. 

College might have made us wiser — and I mean 
by wiser, more competent to apply an old principle 
to a new case. If it could not endow us with that 
complete and generous education which Milton 
describes, it might at least have started us right 
by communicating to us an intelligent appreciation 
of the experiments of mankind, his failures and 
triumphs; and so started, we might have been 
more apt to achieve the comprehensive tolerant, 
apprehensive point of view which should charac- 
terize an educated man. 

[161 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

If you say these things are impossible where a 
university consists as I have admitted, of average 
teachers and average students, and is managed as it 
is now managed — by system — I will confess that 
you are right; but it need not be so managed. Our 
system is wrong. It rests upon the notion that boys 
may be forced to learn. Enlightenment comes by 
loving. Today and always the normal man has 
been eager to learn. If a crank stands on a street 
corner, he will not lack an audience. When I con- 
sider how many flock to hear the politicians during 
a campiaign and applaud with unfeigned enthusi- 
asm, I am amazed at the eagerness of men to 
understand what concerns them. A wish to know 
is not dead in us. We are perplexed by the prob- 
lems of today and by the conventional institutions 
which hedge us in. We have never understood 
them, and we wish to understand them, and of all 
learners the boy is the most inquisitive. 

Other universities of other times have used a 
different method. The Greeks established educa- 
tion upon a foundation of contact and discussion. 
Knowing that the prosperity of an idea depended 
upon the character of the student, they adapted 
instruction to that character and tried to rouse 
the faculty of thinking not by the scourge of vexing 
examinations but by explaining to him the signifi- 

[17] 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

cance of what he thought he knew. They were 
not rash enough to tell any what to think, they 
attempted to find out what he did think and to 
show him the consequences which flowed from 
foolish opinion. They not only asked but an- 
swered questions, and were careful to avoid doc- 
trine, and taught by example, simply. 

Let me illustrate what I mean. When a certain 
city, fairly well governed by a tyrant, was threat- 
ened by mob violence, a philosopher checked dis- 
order not by preaching a civic doctrine but by the 
following fable. **Day after day", he said, **the 
butchers selected from the herd one for slaughter, 
and those that were left, alarmed by the danger 
got together to devise a remedy. 'Shall we who 
are strong humbly submit, or use our strength to 
end these depredations?' was put to them, and 
they resolved upon war. As the oxen were plowing 
up the groimd with their hoofs and sharpening 
their horns in the stiff earth, an old one asked to 
be heard. 'Why do you do these things', he 
asked. *Is it because you mean to kill the butchers? 
I beg you to consider that man is a flesh-eating 
animal, and we are inferior to him in power and 
imder his protection. If you kill those craftsmen 
at slaughter who know how to put us to death 
instantly and without pain, we shall be pierced 

[18] 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

with arrows and torn to pieces by those who 
lack practice.' " 

Such a method of instruction is not only simpler 
but more effective than a labored effort to tell men 
why they are unfit to be free. Consider how easily 
we might have punctured the recent economic 
bubble called a boom. Every man was complain- 
ing of the profiteer and exorbitant wages, and 
none could tell us how we might escape from our 
affliction. Thousands of words were published 
and we read eagerly but remained perplexed. If 
some thoughtful man had repeated to us the 
familiar jingle, 

Jack and Jill went up the hill 
To fetch a pail of water. 
Jack fell down and broke his crown 
And Jill came tumbling after — 

we might have perceived a profound economic 
principle and escaped a most vexing and distressing 
perplexity. The fool who goes up a hill to get a 
pail of water is not less foolish than the employer 
or employe who expects to find prosperity at the 
top of a market. If we did not perceive the 
reason, we might at least have become interested 
in the explanation of the collapse which now 
afflicts us. 

[19] 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

The Greeks proceeded upon the principle that 
he who would drive fat oxen must himself be fat, 
or seem so. They did not scourge the scholar to 
make him keep pace with them, they kept pace 
with him. So did Christ. He told parables and 
conferred with those who jfiocked to him. Plutarch 
gave us a sketch of a great man and we were roused 
to emulation. 

We attempt to make a philosophy of things 
which should be taught by fairy-tales. The average 
mind is no better than it was a thousand years ago 
— it is still simple, and it must be taught simply. 
A fable, a parable, an example is interesting; a 
principle kills inquiry. Drudgery repels, curiosity 
invites diligence. We make a task of what should 
be delightful. 

Consider how we were taught the Anabasis. 
We proceeded laboriously from word to word and 
sentence to sentence, parsing as we went, and were 
never taught the splendor of Xenophon's amazing 
achievement. We learned from astronomy not the 
glories and vastness of the Universe, but how men 
of science calculated the movements of the planets. 
We regarded the Greek plays not as criticisms of 
life written in the most perfect language of all 
time, but as the repositories of the strange phanta- 
sies of an incomprehensible nation of dreamers. 

(20] 



THE CXDLLEGE MAN 

Skimming the salient events of human experience, 
we skipped the significance of those events and it 
never occurred to us that since the beginning 
there has been a struggle between men constituted 
as we are for what they and we call liberty, order 
and justice, and that such struggle must go on 
from generation to generation. As it was taught 
to us, even religion became a doctrine and that 
which is after all the most wonderful sweet thing 
in the world became a rigid barrier between 
neighbors. 

The university is too lavish in its teaching and 
cloys the appetite of youth. If we pour a glut of 
water upon a bottle, little water will enter. Each 
must receive according to his structure and capac- 
ity; yet if a boy likes what he is being taught he 
will take more than where instruction is forced 
upon him. Truth and beauty are not unpalatable 
unless we make them so, for an eager empty mind — 
and such is the mind of all healthy young men — 
will not shrink from gratification. The amiable 
parts of learning are not distasteful. If the uni- 
versity will but spread the feast, the student will 
eat. It cannot force him to learn. 

If you think we cannot revert to the old method 
because our students are too numerous, or tell me 
we now practice it with our tutorial systems, I say 

[21] 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

a teacher's influence is as far-reaching as his 
character and voice, and that there were more 
students in the universities then than now, and 
that Pythagoras did not reach the scholars who 
flocked to him by any such tutorial system: he 
spoke direct; it was he whom they wished to hear, 
not another and inferior. Many men can be reached 
by one. Consider how amazingly influential the 
great men of the past have been. Why was 
Socrates put to death — was it not because a great 
city feared that his influence might destroy the 
religion of the State? Confucius was influential, 
St. Francis of Assisi sent forth an army of devout 
men to set an example of poverty and piety, 
John Wesley made Methodists of tens of thou- 
sands. Even today such a preposterous fool as 
Coxey can induce a multitude to follow him 
blindly, trustfully and hopefully across a continent. 
What we are apt to assume is not true. Our system 
is less wise than another, and that other is still 
as capable as it ever was of inducing young men 
to wish to understand. 

When men mingle and talk together, each helps 
the other, for each brings his acquisitions into the 
common stock and shares what others contribute. 
So all genuine culture is acquired. Poets were 
fashioned at the Mermaid, painters and sculptors 

122] 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

within the walls of Florence. Hume and Adam 
Smith learned political economy at a coffee-house, 
French manners and civility and clarity were 
practiced in the salon. There were movements at 
Oxford when Colet and Erasmus, Newman and 
Jowett taught. It is foolish to say ignorant men 
cannot be reached by men of sense. What is lack- 
ing is opportunity for questions and answers. 
Nothing in all the world is so powerful as personal 
influence, and yet we do what we can to destroy it, 
xirging instruction rather than inviting conference. 
To enlighten a man, we must find out where he is 
dark and what obscures his vision, and hold the 
torch. The university is apt to be a pile of fagots: 
it might, kindled by enthusiasm, become a great 
light, shining and beckoning. 

You may think I urge upon you a silly dream, 
but I think it an achievable aspiration. There 
have been great universities and their influence 
has been immediately felt and has endured from 
generation to generation, and none of them were 
fashioned or managed as ours are. If we ask why 
Horace and Cicero and many others embarked 
upon a perilous journey and sought out the teach- 
ers of Athens, we will discover that they wished 
to know how to speak and think by practice and 
example. We who value above all else physical 

[231 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

prowess, have learned how to develop it. We 
have tracks and fields and gymnasia and swim- 
ming pools and tennis courts, and encourage men 
to use their brawn in order that they may become 
strong, agile and adroit. So the Greeks encour- 
aged men to use their brains. We may find today 
as much useful instruction in the Memorabilia of 
Socrates as in a year at college, for what Socrates 
asked and said still rouses the dormant faculties 
and makes them eager and acquisitive. Let me 
be ever so commonplace, yet if I am allowed an 
intimate association with a wise man I cannot 
choose but catch from him something to make me 
wiser, — a point of view perhaps, a way of approach- 
ing a subject, a capacity for detecting an error, a 
craving for truth, a wholesome incredulity. The 
Greeks by their methods taught not only the 
Romans but all Christendom. Their influence has 
not yet subsided. The Augustan age was the 
effect of the Greek influence, and that influence 
still guides and has never ceased to guide seekers 
after truth and beauty. We can trace that influ- 
ence from nation to nation and century to century 
across the dark history of the Middle Ages and 
today detect it in the lectures of the class-room 
and the lessons of the text-books. The amazing 
renascence of the 13th century was the indirect 
result of its inspiration. The Greek culture in- 

[24] 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

Spired the greater renascence of the 15th and 16th 
centuries. Colet went to Italy to learn Greek 
and taught it at Oxford. Erasmus, a pupil of 
Colet, translated the New Testament. More 
wrote his Utopia in emulation of Plato. Caxton 
set up his printing press and issued his precious 
volumes of translations, spreading among the peo- 
ples the enlightenment which had been smothered 
in the monasteries. The Bible was done into Eng- 
lish and set up in the churches. Chapman trans- 
lated Homer, North, Plutarch, and, inspired by 
the new learning, England shook off its lethargy 
and the conventions of a thousand years and 
achieved a new joy, a new liberty, a new life. 
Feudalism vanished, the serfs were emancipated, 
the Roman Church was shorn of its ecclesiastical 
jurisdictions and kings of their arbitrary preroga- 
tives, and letters flourished and all that lay in the 
dust arose and sang. 

These amazing historical events were the imme- 
diate results of the Greek method of instruction. 
It taught not what to think but how to think. 
It was at once interesting and stimulating, and 
none who felt it could resist its fascination. Long, 
long ago, nearly seven hundred years, men began 
to teach in Italy the literature of Rome. Cicero 
and Virgil and Tacitus were taught, and thousands 

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THE COLLEGE MAN 

in distant parts of the world, hearing strange 
rumors of the new learning, flocked to listen and 
learn, and having tasted of the waters of life 
scattered over Europe fructifying as with affec- 
tionate rain the arid souls of Christendom. One 
stood upon a corner in a remote province and 
cried his wares, offering "Knowledge, Knowledge, 
Knowledge", and a new imiversity was established. 
Oxford was founded in the 13th century, and 
many another seat of learning. It was never 
difficult to persuade men to wish to know. 

Knowledge is good, wisdom is excellent. We 
have managed somehow to make them uninterest- 
ing, hateful perhaps, and I meant to show that by 
other methods we might have done better. Da\dd 
supplicated God to give him understanding. Maybe 
it can be got nowhere else. There is a significance 
in the serpent of Eden. The Greeks conceived 
truth to be a beautiful woman with snaky hair, 
whom to look upon was death. But I think these 
images were intended rather to entice than to 
frighten us. Adam dared purchase knowledge with 
his life, and the Gorgon was overcome by a brave 
adventurer. Every youth has in him the pro- 
pensity of the knight errant: he wishes to go into 
the world and encounter its perils and problems. 
There is a fascination in learning. Every day we 

[26] 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

may make new discoveries. When we graduate 
we do not end but commence' that real education 
which ends only with life. 

I know that culture is a slow progress from prej- 
udice to prejudice, to be measured not by truth 
but by what seemed true and now seems false, yet 
it is worth striving for. It helps us to understand 
our fellows and reconciles^us to them; it protects 
us against imposture; it is a broad highway to 
strangers, and a pleasant by-path between neigh- 
bors; it gives pleasure and gets pleasure by con- 
ference, and I think it should be the aspiration of 
all social beings. To be fit for the best society 
should be the aspiration^of every gentleman. 

I like the college character even though I refuse 
to admire the systems of our colleges. I know 
that they let students help themselves by affording 
place and opportunity for mutual influence, but 
I think they should do more. They might let 
learning become what it should be — attractive, 
alluring, fascinating; and I dare affirm that such 
a consummation is not beyond the reach of 
Princeton. 

Consider what one school of learning founded 
upon a sound principle has achieved for mankind. 
Dedicated to the culture of truth, beauty and ex- 
cellence in accomplishment, untrammeled by con- 

[27] 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

vention, open-minded, willing to hear and discuss 
and improve, inviting opposition, encouraging scru- 
tiny, deprecating fanaticism, understanding em- 
phasis and arrangement, and wishing clarity; com- 
posed of a few great men of great minds, it lured 
to its groves all the eager spirits of antiquity and 
by its methods taught them an art and a capacity 
which enabled them to produce a literature so 
great that it became a powerful and significant 
influence throughout the world for two thousand 
years. 

Do you think I exaggerate? None who are 
familiar with the classics and their tremendous 
influence upon the human mind can think so. 
Like a torch they kindled and consumed the rub- 
bish which impeded the progress of many nations, 
and none touched by its flame failed to achieve a 
new hope, a new liberty and a new prosperity. 
Christ alone has accomplished more, and even 
Christianity is indebted to them. We owe the 
Reformation to the classics. 

Is it foolish to hope that Princeton, enriched and 
fortified by the old culture, can make of the young 
men who flock to its halls from every part of this 
great republic worthy successors to the poets, 
historians, philosophers and statesmen of a more 
primitive and barbaric age, or must we be content 

128] 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

with mediocrity and the patterned fabrics of a 
factory, lacking variety and lacking vivacity? 

I cannot conclude and ignore the day. Lincoln 
was bom on the 12th of February. His life, his 
service and his sacrifice none can ignore. He was 
not a college graduate, yet he was fit for his high 
calling. His character was eloquent and his word 
ran to the remotest confines of his country. He 
righted a great wrong, daring to fight for right- 
eousness, and he won by the nobility of his charac- 
ter the gratitude even of his enemies. If we ask 
why he was so great, men will tell you he was 
humble-minded and wished to understand. To 
implant such a wish should be the object of a 
university. 

In conclusion, I venture to quote a familiar 
passage from Cardinal Newman. Whether such 
an ideal be achievable or not, it is worth striving for. 

"A imiversity training is a great ordinary means 
to a great ordinary end. It aims at raising the 
intellectual tone of society, at cultivating the pub- 
lic mind, at purifying the national taste, at supply- 
ing true principles to popular enthusiasm and . 
fixed aims to popular aspiration, at giving enlarge- 
ment and sobriety to the ideas of the age, and 
facilitating the exercise of political power and 

[29] 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

refining the intercourse of ppvate life. It is the 
education which gives a man a clear, conscious 
view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth 
in developing them, an eloquence in expressing 
them and a force in urging them. It teaches him 
to see things as they are, to go right to the point, 
to disentangle a skein of thought, to detect what 
is sophistical, to discard what is irrelevant. It 
prepares him to fill any post with credit and to 
master any subject with facility. It shows him 
how to accommodate himself to others, how to 
throw himself into their state of mind, how to 
bring before them his own, how to influence them, 
how to come to an understanding with them, how 
to bear with them. He is at home in any society, 
he has common ground with every class, he knows 
when to speak and when to be silent, he is able to 
converse, he is able to listen, he can ask a question 
pertinently and gain a lesson seasonably; he is 
ever ready yet never in the way, he is a pleasant 
companion, a comrade you can rely upon, he 
knows when to be serious and when to trifle, and 
he has a sure tact which enables him to trifle with 
gracefulness and to be serious with effect. He has 
the repose of mind which lives in itself while it 
lives in the world and which has resources for its 
happiness at home when it cannot go abroad. 

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THE COLLEGE MAN 

He has a gift which serves him in public and sup-' 
ports him in retirement, without which good for- 
time is but vulgar and with which failure and 
disappointment have a charm. The art which 
tends to make a man all this is, in the object which 
it pursues, as useful as the art of wealth, though it 
is less susceptible of method and less tangible, 
less sure in its result." 

Editorial from the Harvard Alumni Bulletin of 
March IGiK 1921. 

The recent meeting of the National Alumni 
Association of Princeton, held in St. Louis on 
Lincoln's Birthday, was a remarkable demonstra- 
tion of college loyalty and of the value of alumni 
discussion and co-operation. The high level of 
the program arranged for this meeting is illustrated 
by the address of Mr. Isaac H. Lionberger, Prince- 
ton 75, from which selections are printed in the 
present issue of the Bulletin. The topic is one 
on which all deliberations of this kind must centre. 
What ought to be the distinguishing characteristics 
of the college man? What, in other words, is the 
quality of the product which it is the business of 
colleges to deliver to the nation? 

That Mr. Lionberger has answered this question 
correctly, cannot, we think, be denied. He says 

[31] 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

in effect that what the cpllege may reasonably 
hope to cultivate is an awakened critical conscious- 
ness, or the power to think for oneself. College 
cannot give a man the discipline that comes from 
a struggle for livelihood, or the mastery of any 
art, or the ripeness and detachment of scholarship. 
It can, however, teach a man to distinguish knowl- 
edge from ignorance, to see human limitations, es- 
pecially his own, to defend himself against error 
and superstition, and to profit by the mistakes of 
history. 

The college man, in this sense, will be marked 
by the absence of credulity and of complacency. 
Knowing the genuineness and urgency of human 
problems, he will be "apprehensive"; knowing 
their complexity, he will be modest and tolerant. 
That this quality of mind has not been more suc- 
cessfully cultivated by American colleges in the 
past is in part the fault of the student and in part 
the fault of the teacher. The former because of 
his youth and relatively prosperous circumstances 
does not realize his own spiritual needs. Youth, in 
other words, is a time of plenty rather than a time 
of famine. The starved mind does not awaken to 
its condition until later when it is too late. The 
teacher, on the other hand, is too likely to feel his 
self-sufficiency and superiority, or to fail in the 

[ 32 ] 



THE COLLEGE MAN 

happy faculty of enlivening his subject and stimu- 
lating his student. 

It is suggested that the teacher who is selected 
for his scholarly attainment is peculiarly liable to 
these failings. But is not pedantry rather the 
cap and bells of scholarship which marks its oppo- 
site? A scholar is not a self-sufficient man lording 
it over the ignorant, but a self-critical man humb- 
ling himself before truth. Nor is he disposed to 
deal with knowledge in bulk, and to pour it into 
receptive minds. As a scholar he knows where 
knowledge comes from, and he is much more con- 
cerned with the problems that remain than with 
the truths that have been achieved. As a real 
scholar he will know the real problems, and will 
infallibly lead his students into their presence. 

Mr. Lionberger exemplifies a service which an 
alumnus who has spent many years in active life 
is peculiarly fitted to render. He may seek from 
his own experience to determine what are the 
enduring values of his education; or what among 
the qualities that he now esteems might properly 
have been inculcated back in the inexperienced 
and unforeseeing years of early youth. 



[331 



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